The Library of the Royal Asiatic SocietySource: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Jul., 1993), pp. 329-330Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britainand IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25182757 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 09:59

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Cambridge University Press and Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland are collaborating withJSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.223.28.117 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 09:59:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

The Library of the Royal Asiatic Society

The computer acquired by the Society for use in the Library has been used to create a new

Printed Books catalogue and to construct a database listing holdings of periodicals. The new catalogue is making progress and the first 1500 entries have been completed.

Information is entered for the following fields: Author, Title, Publication, Physical

Description, Subject and Shelf Number. The subject headings largely follow those used

for entries in the catalogue of the Library of Congress, and a printed list of the subject

headings which have been used will be available beside the computer terminal in the

Librarian's office.

The computer is available for searching by Fellows wishing to look for particular books

in the library, and a user-friendly screen offers the following choice:

(1) ALL INDEX search

(2) AUTHOR with TITLE

(3) AUTHOR only (4) TITLE only

(5) SUBJECT only An initial random selection of books was made to provide as wide a basic file of

significant words as possible. Then, in addition to all new books acquired since January

1992, it was decided to concentrate on entering the books from one area.

South-East Asia was chosen because the books on this area were scattered and needed

to be regrouped in discrete geographical areas. This meant changing most of the shelf

marks, and it seemed a suitable time to enter the whole of this part of the library into the

new catalogue. The English-language material has now been completed as has most of the

Dutch literature on Indonesia and the French on Indo-China.

There remain quite a large number of items in Thai script. It is not clear yet how many

of these have a brief transcription of the Author, Title, Place of Publication and Date, which would make possible

an entry on the catalogue. It also remains to be decided

whether priority should be given to entering this material rather than European-language

material relating to other geographical areas, which may be in greater demand. One

important consideration is the fact that much of this material does not yet appear to be in

any of the Library catalogues and so should perhaps be given a greater priority than might otherwise have been the case.

JRAS, Series 3, 3, 2 (1993), PP- 329~330

This content downloaded from 91.223.28.117 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 09:59:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

330 The RAS Library

At the present time, some periodical titles are to be found in more than one place in the

Library, the bound volumes being on the shelves in the main monograph sequences and

the unbound parts being in boxes in the basement. The long-term objective is to have all

the periodicals, apart from the current issue of those titles which we still receive, stored in

the basement.

Periodical titles were listed in the old Printed Catalogue which recorded library stock

as it was in about 1932. After that monographs were entered on cards in a new

catalogue

and periodical parts were entered on cards which were kept in boxes. These records have

not always survived.

The computer is being used to update records of periodical titles, both dead and current,

together with holdings of each title. This is being done on floppy disks. One disk has a file

listing the periodicals by title and a separate file listing the periodicals by the box number

in which they were kept. A print-out of each file is kept in the Librarian's Office. The other

disk has a separate file for each title and on that file the holdings for that title are noted

including bound volumes of some of the earlier titles.

It is hoped that eventually there will be a complete record of holdings of periodical parts and that this will facilitate the search by both readers and library staff for a particular part of a title.

This content downloaded from 91.223.28.117 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 09:59:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions